We Are England S2022E56 - Jassa Ahluwalia: Am I English?

Actor, director, and writer Jassa Ahluwalia has mixed heritage. His father is Indian, and his mother is Anglo-Saxon. Jassa has white skin, and speaks fluent Punjabi. Jassa and his sister Ramanique spent a large amount of their childhood living with and next door to their paternal grandparents in Leicester, where they were deeply immersed in Punjabi culture. Jassa speaks fluent Punjabi, and has visited India several times.

As a young adult, he began to struggle with his sense of identity, and his place in a world which sees him as white, yet he found himself frustrated and unable to express his Indian heritage fully as an actor and performer. Jassa successfully landed acting work on top broadcast dramas and films, including notable theatre roles, as well as appearances on BBC's Peaky Blinders, and Some Girls.

After Jassa was invited to speak at Tedx in India, he started a journey of exploring his identity on social media. He portrays himself, and other characters and makes satirical comment on Indian and English identity issues. Recently he has started writing a book based on his experiences exploring identity. This programme follows Jassa as he visits family members, his father, mother, and sister, and the influential writer and presenter Sathnam Sanghera. He discusses their experiences as well as his own, to discover more about how his upbringing, and his experiences have shaped his own sense of Englishness.